


Return to the Cirque

by Greetings_Dearie



Category: Cirque du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan - Darren Shan, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)
Genre: F/M, Porn With Plot, Post-Book 6: The Vampire Prince (Cirque du Freak | The Saga of Dareen Shan), Saga of Larten Crepsley (Cirque Du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan), Vampires, cirque du freak - Freeform, darren shan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:14:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greetings_Dearie/pseuds/Greetings_Dearie
Summary: The discovery of Larten Crepsleys secret daughter leads Darren and his sire back to where it all began, the Cirque Du Freak. After meeting Victoria Crepsley it is clear that Darren is enamored with her but why was she a secret? And why does she bring a darkness out in Darren he never knew existed? A more macabre take on the book series.
Relationships: Darren Shan/Original Female Character(s)





	Return to the Cirque

**Author's Note:**

> This is about as far from the OG story as it gets. But I wanted to have the cirque but *spicy* so humor me pretty please

It still felt alien to him, he was a prince, all his suffering... The trials, Kurdas betrayal, his near execution... It had all lead to him becoming a prince, Vancha had found great amusement in calling him "your majesty" any chance he got... Darren, on the other hand was less enthused by the concept. He was only 20 years old, he had suffered enough for ten lifetimes but in his mind he was still a young man even if that was no longer what he saw in the mirror. The burns had healed but the scarring was undeniable, his hair seemed to be refusing to grow back and his hand never fully recovered from that damned break. He was a young man trapped in the body of this deformed being he saw looking back at him in the mirror every day. He had never been a shallow person, but before all this he would have classed himself as handsome enough to hopefully catch the eye of the right girl one day. He was no hunk before this unfortunate incident but he would have never called himself ugly, now though? Now he looked like Frankenstein's monster, even that thing managed to get a girlfriend in the end.

"Who are you kidding." He frowned at himself in the mirror running a hand over his scarred bald head "at least you're alive." he was certain the first sign of madness was talking to yourself but at this stage he was beyond mad. He had just dressed for the day when Larten Crepsley let himself into his room, even though he was now a prince Mr. Crepsley would always be his sire and he treated him as such.

"I must leave." He said to Darren bluntly.

"Leave? Leave where? I'll go with you where are we going?" Darren suddenly felt a pep in his step, getting off this damned mountain was exactly what he needed. In the outside world he was just Darren, none of this prince stuff... He was just plain old Darren Shan...

"I do not think that is wise Darren, you are not prince long you should stay, Vancha is accompanying me instead, I will just be gone a few days. You still have much to learn here." Larten could advise Darren but he could not order him to stay, Darren knew this, in a sick way he now outranked his sire. Darren smiled broadly "I have forever to learn Mr. Crepsley, but I won't learn anything until I get a break from this place so lets go before I get dragged into another lesson." He could see Mr. Crepsley was not happy with his decision, casting his eyes to the heavens he finally nodded and stood to the side.

"Fine." He conceeded.

When he exited Vampire Mountain Darren felt like there was breath in his lungs for the first time in a long time. Part of him did not want to return although he knew he had to. He would not dwell on that now, he would enjoy the trip. Hopefully it was far away enough that they would be gone a few weeks. "You will prematurely age yourself with that sneer Larten what is the matter with you I thought you would be excited." Vancha said squeezing his friends shoulder as they walked. Darren had noticed he seemed a lot more frigid and stern than usual. Was it because he had decided to tag along?

"Shut up Vancha, I just want to get there as soon as possible that is all, that letter was days old. God knows how long she has been waiting, she is probably already gone truth be told." He sighed his shoulder slumping.

She? Since when did Mr. Crepsley get this morose about a random woman? It obviously was not Arra so who were they going to see?

"Where are we going exactly?" He finally quizzed.

"Back to the Cirque. I have some business to attend to there." Mr. Crepsley finally answered.

"Business? With a lady?" Darren knew he was teasing his sire, not even Vancha could hide the smirk that was forming at the corners of his lips.

However, the statement made Mr. Crepsley stop dead in his tracks and turn on his heels to face Darren. His eyes were like thunder "not like that! Never like that!" He threw his arms up in the air in exasperation.

"Oh Larten will you tell the boy, you are acting like a lunatic." Vancha huffed reaching into his pocket and pulling out a hip flask filled with whiskey.

"No, no one can know. It is bad enough you know."

"I have kept your little secret all these years, if you cannot trust the vampire you made who can you trust?" Vancha reasoned.

"Will someone please just tell me what is going on!" Darren finally exclaimed in irritation. Sometimes they still treated him like a little kid. He still looked young, that was thanks to the vampirism, it didn't mean he was though, they should know that better than anyone and yet they still treated him like a child that was to be dismissed at the soonest convenience.

"She is his daughter! There, secret is out I said it!" Vancha said laughing jovially in his friends faces. Darren's jaw went slack, Mr. Crepsley looked like he wanted to kill someone dead with his bare hands and nothing else. There was no way after all these years together he would just not tell him he had a child?! Was she a human? A vampire? Who was her mother? Arra? Surely not.

"Wait wait, when? How? With who?!" Darren said in disbelief.

"I will not discuss this with either of you, Vancha I hope every human you drink from has blood as cold as ice!" Mr. Crepsley said furiously before turning his back on them both and flitting into the night.

"Vancha, who is this person? How could I have never known this about him? He has never mentioned a child not once, in fact I am pretty damn sure he hates children..." Darren's mind was going a mile a minute, he wanted answers, no, he needed answers. was the man that practically raised him the man he knew at all?

"Ah your majesty, that is not my story to tell. Come on, we better catch up to him before he flits off the side of a cliff."

It took 2 days to reach the location the Cirque Du Freak was currently residing at. In those 2 days Mr. Crepsley refused to look at Darren and Vancha let alone speak to them. Anytime Darren tried to discuss the topic once more with Vancha he was shut down. It was as frustrating as it was concerning. Larten Crepsley was a private man, Darren knew that but he also knew that he had already shared so many intimate parts of his life with him, he imagined a daughter was important yet he had never mentioned her. Not once. Was she disfigured? Was she evil? Did she not know he was her father? So many questions he knew he would likely never get the answer to.

Entering the camp grounds of the cirque felt like entering home, he missed it, he missed his friends. He already had plans to find Evra and chew his ear about the ridiculous events of his life since he left. His ears perked, there was a show already going on, the gasps of terror and awe from the crowd were audible, it made him smile fondly. It was like a ghost of a memory now, it was the most tragic nostalgia he had felt in quite some time. It seemed Mr. Crepsley knew exactly where to go, he stalked forward towards the sleeping quarters Darren knew to be Mr. Talls. Hot on his heels Darren entered the tent seconds after Mr Crepsley, what stood before him was the complete opposite of what he had imagined this person to look like in his mind.

Darren was certain his face spoke volumes, she looked like a painting. She could have been no more than 22 years old, her eyes were the clearest blue he had ever seen, her skin was pale, too pale, corpse like... But on her it was sublime morbidity. Her skin only looked more deathly against her flaming red hair, it was not orange like her fathers, it was a deep auburn copper red, it shone like a halo of loose curls that fell down her back. She was petite, no more than 5"4, but her eyes were stern like Mr. Crepsleys and her plump lips were turned down in a frown of distaste. She had a small scar on the right of her chin and another on the left of her neck, Darren swallowed, for the second time that day he felt like an inferior boy and he cursed himself for barging into the tent because now all he wanted to do was flee. There was no way she was Mr. Crepsleys daughter, how could he have created THAT?! Impossible...

"Took you long enough..." Her voice was light, it had a foreign twang to it, Scottish perhaps? It was from one of the Celtic nations that was for sure.

Darren looked on as his sire shifted his weight from one foot to the other clearly unsure how to approach the situation. "I only received the letter 2 days ago and I left immediately. Why did you not call me, I own a telephone now." He had never heard his sire address someone the way he was addressing her, it was the tone of a father, a father that had missed his child.

The hardness of her face softened slightly, sighing she reached out and squeezed Mr. Crepsleys forearm lightly. "I do not trust phones, you never know who is listening in." She said her gaze averting from his to the floor, she had a new look on her face now... Guilt?

"When did it happen?"

"Last week, neither she nor I saw it coming, which is unheard of. I have my suspicions but... I think he knows. That is why I came here, it is the only place I could think of where I could keep my head down until I think of what to do next... Hibernius has been most accommodating but harboring me... It will bring him a wealth of problems too father I cannot stay here... I just thought you would like to know, if he asks to speak with you, run. Run as fast as you can. No doubt him and his horrid men are already sniffing us both out." Harboring her? Was she a criminal? What did she do? Darren suddenly felt like he had been thinking loudly because he felt eyes on him. Her eyes to be exact, they were narrowed and regarding him cautiously.

"Oh, forgive me. This is Darren, he is my prodigy I made him." Darren wasn't sure but he thought he could almost hear a tone of pride in his voice introducing his deformed assistance to his unenthused daughter. "Darren, this is Veronica." Veronica... She looked like a Veronica...

"He is a child." She said it like a statement, not a question. Darren wanted the ground to open and swallow him whole.

"I am 20 and I am a... a prince!" He wanted to punch himself in the face. He looked like a kid that had been dipped in a vat of acid not a 20 year old man and now he had just tried to compensate for that by saying he was a damned prince. Idiot idiot idiot.

"Of course, you are the boy Vancha rants and raves about. I was unaware I was in the presence of Royalty." She said the amused grin she was wearing only making him want to evaporate into nothing more.

"Darren, stay here with her. I am going to get Mr. Tall, I need to speak to him privately on a matter."

He wanted to beg Mr. Crepsley not to leave him alone with her, his brain turned into a pile of shit the second he saw her. Damn it for once he wished he was a boy instead of a man masquerading as one.

She slowly approached him those clear blue pools looking him up and down her curiosity clearly piqued.

"What happened to you? My father can be rough around the edges but I believe child abuse is beneath him"

"Oh eh... The trials on vampire mountain were... Not kind..." He said subconsciously running a hand over his hairless head.

"Ah, I have heard about these trials. They sound barbaric... You talk like you cannot reverse these injuries?" She looked confused, of course he was stuck like this, he was fully healed, even vampirism could only do so much to fix the mess those trials and his subsequent hiding with the wolves had done.

"I can't?"

Her hands went to her hips, that's when he noticed them for the first time. Her tattoos. She weird lines tattooed on each of her long pale fingers, it looked tribal, old... Was she old? What even was she?

"I bet you I could make you look brand new, I could even get you to look your own age." She said stepping closer to him to examine the damage up close. She was so close to him now that he could smell her, she smelled floral, with a hint of musk... It was a scent he could drown in if given half the chance.

"That's impossible vampires age slowly I'm stuck like this..."

"Are you always this glass half empty or are you just nervous my father will say no if you ask can I fix you." She challenged.

"You don't know me, why would you want to?" He retorted.

"It is what I do, my talent... Plus, I need something to distract me from my impending doom. What is the worst that could happen? Are you scared or something?"

Was he scared of having a woman that made his brain transport directly to his dick touch any part of him? Absolutely he was fucking terrified.

"Of course I'm not scared!"

"Ok then, ask your sire, if he says yes I will make you into a whole new man Darren."


End file.
